Kemper Securities taps Muller Data to provide pricing for unit trusts.

Muller Data Corp. has won a contract to provide pricing information for Kemper Securities Inc.'s unit investment trusts, Muller announced yesterday.

Under terms of the contract, Muller Data will price the underlying tax-exempt municipal and taxable bonds of the approximately 550 unit trusts that Kemper has outstanding. The company will provide odd-lot pricing on specified municipal bonds as well as prices on insured corporate bonds. Muller is considered one of the leading providers of securities pricing, fixed-income evaluations, and related information to customers such as mutual funds, unit investment trusts, banks, brokerage firms, and financial institutions.

The unit investment trusts that will be priced by Muller are sponsored by Kemper Investment Trusts, a service of Kemper Securities. The approximately 550 unit trusts sponsored by the Kemper unit have total assets of more than $3 billion. Muller declined to reveal the value of the Kemper contract.

Recently, Kemper introduced a series of unit investment trusts called the Kemper Defined Funds. This type of unit investment trust eliminates investors' long wait for the first interest income payment, which traditionally has been as long as 120 days. The new Kemper funds act much like a mutual fund, but have all of the fixed elements associated with a unit trust.

Muller Data is a subsidiary of Thomson Financial Services Co., which is wholly owned by Toronto-based Thomson Corp. Muller Data is wholly owned by Thomson Corp., which also publishes The Bond Buyer.

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